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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Hi everybody! Today was a really fun day! It was by far our messiest day of the week!

We started out by making out paper machevolcanos. I had preformed them ahead of time for time sake. It was just balled up newspaper and tape. The kids wrote their names on the one they chose....

and started the "ewwwwwww" when they watched my demonstration!!

Even thought they acted like they were grossed out, they all really got into it trying to make theirs "the best!"

It took us the entire first hour to get these covered. By the time we were done we had paste from one end of the kitchen to the other!

They were as good at cleaning up the mess as they were at making it, thankfully!

Next, we enjoyed a volcano snack! They chose Mud (chocolate pudding) or sand (vanilla pudding) and buried their volcano (ice cream cone.) Then they strategically placed their Dino's around the bottom and then covered them in lava (icing.)

They thought this was a pretty cool snack!

Next, we read a book about fossils and examined some real fossils. After that, we used salt dough to make our own fossils. Tomorrow we will paint them to look more rock like and put them in a fossil book.

This is salt dough which is basically flour, salt and water. I baked it at 350 degrees for about an hour to make them hard and light.

Monday, June 29, 2009

I am hosting an enrichment camp this week and next at my house. Our theme this week is Dinosaurs!

We started the morning by making our briefcases. These will be our vehicle for taking our research back and forth each day. They are made out of grocery sacks and are super sturdy!

The kids used stickers and foam letters to personalize their breifcase.

They also spent some time exploring my collection of 100+ dinosaurs. We talked about the different features of each one and how those features might have helped them survive. We also read about different ones and identified them through the pictures in the books. We sorted herbivors and carnivors.

Next, we made a book about dinosaurs. The books were made out of envelopes stuck together so they kind of folded out. Each envelope had a different label on the outside and paper on the inside. We wrote facts on the paper inside.

The envelopes were labeled "Types," "What Happend," and "Favorite."

We copied off the names from the pictures we sorted.

Lastly, we decided which dinosaur we wanted to know more about. the kids chose two non fiction books to take home and read. They also took home these research journals that are made out of tiny paper bags. We will use their research later in the week for another activity.

Tomorrow: Fossils and Volcanos! Check back tomorrow night to see what we did!

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

This week, we are using a sketch from Got Sketch. Its a great websight with fabulous sketches. Valerie Salmon is amazing and always inspiring...

We used sketch #85

{Valerie Salmon's sketches are for personal use only and not for the purpose of publication submissions, contest entries, design team projects, class projects, and design templates.}

And here is my take. It's called "In the Zone" because this was Emma's first Easter that she "got it." She knew just what to do with those eggs on the gorund and wasn't going to stop till she got them all!

Now for your next stop! Check out Jen and see what she did with this sketch. DOn't forget to keep hopping and leave me a comment! PLEASE??

Friday, June 5, 2009

My daughter just finished Kindergarten! I'm sad and excited at the same time. She had a very special teacher who she loved and so together we decided to make her s special gift.

As a teacher myself, I take my daughter's teachers gifts very seriously! Now, as a teacher, I love a gift card, don't get me wrong, but my very favorite gift is a hand written note from a parent telling me how much their child learned and grew while in my care.

So this year I decided to make Ellie's teacher a paperbag thank you album. I know 10 years from now, she really wont care about pictures, but hopfully our family's words of thanks will continue to inspire her to continue to do amazing things in her classroom.

I had Ellie come up with a "Top 10 reasons why I love Mrs. Ramirez" list. Behind their picture, where it says Top Secret, is her gift card!

Inside the flap are a bunch of pictures from the year. On the back of each one, I wrote a note of thanks or how that activty helped Ellie to learn or grow.

Ellie wrote what she learned this year and drew a picture of her favorite memory (100th day of school and the fancy hats they got to make!)

Here is my note of thanks as well as a note that Ellie wrote to her.

***I dont know why these next pictures are sideways! I CAN'T FIX THEM!!***This is Ellie's picture of Mrs. Ramirez as well as a note she wrote that says "Thank you for being my teacher."

More hidden pictures with thank you notes.

The back side.

I've never made a paperbag album as a gift, but I have made a million of them as "comissions." It was so much fun to make this for someone I care about. I couldn't stop adding little hidden surprises for her.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Its that time again! Time for A Scrappy Blog Hop! his week's theme: use either the word Time or Memory. I chose Time.

I can't claim this LO, its a total scraplift! But, I loved it so much, I had to copy it. My baby just finished Kindergarten this week..sniff, sniff... So to honor her passage to first grade, I did this page! I recently got a time stamp set from Oriental Trading and I used it all for this LO!